Adam Peaty sets 50m breaststroke record at world championships

South Africa’s Cameron Van Der Burgh celebrates after setting a new world record in a preliminary heat of the men’s 50m breaststrock swimming event at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan.

On that occasion, Britain only narrowly missed the embarrassment of failing to win a medal when Fran Halsall took bronze by 0.15 seconds in the women’s 50 freestyle on the last night of competition.

The Staffordshire 20-year-old pipped Olympic gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh by seven hundredths of a second, having trailed the South African for the whole race in Kazan.

The was another British breaststroke double to match, too: David Wilkie was the first man ever to achieve that when he claimed the 100 and 200m crowns in 1975.

She has set herself a punishing schedule and will have just 20 minutes between the 1500m freestyle final and her 200m semi-final in Tuesday’s evening session with the 800m freestyle heats still to come on Friday.

“I’m excited for the challenge tomorrow, it’s going to be tough race – may the best man …”

Elsewhere, Siobhan O’Connor won bronze in the women’s 200m individual medley final.

There was further success for Peaty and team GB, as a world record time of 3.41.71 minutes secured the 4x100m mixed medley gold.

Also advancing to the final on Tuesday night was Missy Franklin of the United States and teammate Kathleen Baker, who moved into the semis after Hosszu withdrew.

“We left it all on the battlefield and I’m just grateful to have a team like this and we can show the world that we’re good enough to do that”.

“I’ve fought every inch and every centimetre and it has been one of the hardest of my life”. “I had to live with that for two years”.

Backstroke specialist Walker-Hebborn got the British quartet off to a superb start and Peaty – fresh from winning the 50m breaststroke title, his second individual gold of the week – ensured they had maintained the lead at the halfway mark.

The 18-year-old, who has already claimed 400m and 1,500m freestyle golds, clocked 1min 55.16sec with Italy’s world record-holder Federica Pellegrini taking silver at 0.16sec for the second consecutive worlds.

Van den Burgh will return to action later on Tuesday as he looks to qualify for Wednesday’s final.

Sebastien Rousseau finished 7th in his semi-final in a time of 1:56.96.